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'To protect and serve' not just words to cadets

The Iraqi police cadets in Class 10 will have to learn fast, then go to patrol some of the meanest streets anywhere.

OUTSIDE AMMAN, Jordan - Faces taut, bodies tense, the Iraqis grip their AK-47s. A command rings out, and dozens of magazines - metal cartridge cases - clatter to the ground.

One of the Iraqis looks flustered.

"He didn't change his magazine," Canadian firearms expert Paul Marsh says as he taps the man's shoulder and points to the cartridge case at his feet. "He took a magazine from his back pocket and put it on the ground, not in the weapon."

Luckily, this is just an exercise in which students learn to replace ammunition in an automatic rifle as quickly as possible. But had the man been confronted by a terrorist, he would have been holding a weapon with no bullets.

"This is serious training," Marsh says, "and it's important that they do it properly."

Here in the Jordanian desert, instructors from America, Canada and 14 other nations are trying to build a professional Iraqi police force. They have trained more than 6,000 officers; the goal is 32,000.

In many ways, it is like any other police academy. Cadets, neatly uniformed, study the basics - taking reports, investigating crimes, learning to use firearms.

But there is also a sense of urgency. While police training in most countries lasts six months, here it is compressed into just eight weeks. That is because everyone - students and instructors alike - knows coalition troops need all the help they can get in quelling an insurgency that has claimed countless Iraqis and more than 1,000 coalition soldiers.

Watching Class 10 graduate last week, instructor Malcolm Thompson of Britain was hopeful. "One thousand five hundred more police are going into the streets of Iraq," he says, "so maybe some of our lads can come home early."

But everyone knows, too, that those streets are among the most dangerous in the world. Already hundreds of Iraqi policemen have been killed, and the odds are great that some in Class 10 won't survive long either.

"My hat's off to them," says Ronnie Dodd, a former Tennessee police officer. "I know what they're facing when they go back home, and they've really got to have a lot of guts."

As U.S. forces pushed toward Baghdad in April 2003, Iraqi officer Saleh Motasher realized Saddam Hussein's army was fighting a losing battle.

"I gave up and went home," says Motasher, a compact, handsome man. But there were few jobs in postwar Iraq; he decided a career in policing would be a good fit given his military background.

More importantly, he says, echoing the words of most cadets, "I wanted to serve my country."

Thus Motasher, 32 and the father of three, found himself in September at the Jordan International Police Training Center.

As motorists head east from Amman or west from the Iraqi border, the center appears suddenly, like a mirage - a vast, walled compound with red, white and blue crash barricades. Opened last December, it was built with $100-million in U.S. aid and is said to be among the most modern in the Middle East.

Inside is a mini city, with a basketball court, swimming pool, soccer field, mess halls, video game rooms, movie theater and prayer room. The Jordanian guards and instructors from some eastern European countries live on the grounds, as do all students.

Like his fellow cadets, Motasher was assigned a bunk and a locker in a clean but spartan barracks. Sunnis and Shiites, Kurds and Turkmen - students from every ethnic group in Iraq - live together as they go through their training. In Motasher's class, more than half are Shiites.

The vast majority of cadets are between 21 and 40. Each student gets new uniforms and a phone card to call home. They won't see their families for two months; they are not allowed to leave the center except in medical emergencies.

For students and instructors alike, the cultural differences can be jarring.

The toilets are Western style, raised off the floor with a seat. But most Iraqis still use the so-called Turkish toilet, essentially a hole in the ground.

"In the first seven days, they had broken all the seats off the toilets," Thompson says. The staff quickly added a crash course in using the unfamiliar fixtures.

For his part, Thompson was surprised by the manifestations of friendship.

"You have to get used to seeing students walking around hand in hand, and they greet by kissing each other. That's something a lot of Western people have difficulty understanding."

Instructors have learned not to guess ages. Many Iraqis have bad teeth and haggard faces, the result of poor nutrition stemming from years of war and economic sanctions.

"I have students come up to me and say, "My mother is your age and she looks a lot older,' " says Carmen Rivera, 48 and a former police lieutenant from Albuquerque, N.M.

Rivera, one of many female staff members, says she has encountered no sexism from the all-male student body. But the Iraqis come from a culture that generally considers women second-class citizens, which can pose problems in training police officers to respect human rights.

The first four weeks are classroom instruction devoted to "general policings," including Iraqi law. Though Saddam Hussein's brutal regime is gone, the country's law still permits men to beat their wives as long as they "leave no marks."

"Women's role in Iraq is a whole lot different than women's role in the West," says Higgins Elliott of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "It's okay to tell them to beat in a certain way, but if you slap and push a wife you'll go to jail. That's the cultural thing."

Some of the Iraqis have a hard time grasping that torture is no longer an acceptable tool of interrogation. During Hussein's era, all suspects were required to confess. Extracting a confession often involved electric shocks, beating the soles of the feet or hanging a suspect upside down and pouring water in his nose.

In general, most students "understand that they are not allowed to use torture," Higgins says. "They've been under the other regime and they want to conform to Western ideas."

Regardless of their nationality, all 336 instructors are required to speak English. Translators interpret from English to Arabic, but the Iraqis "are very receptive to body language," says Rivera, who teaches general policing. "And it's surprising how many know enough English to figure out what you're saying."

Students also can sign up for optional English classes, which have long waiting lists.

In the second four weeks, cadets leave the classroom and move on to what instructors call the "fun stuff" - practical, hands-on experience. Some of the Iraqis have never learned to drive, so they take practice spins around a dirt track in small rental cars.

Another popular course is firearms training because, as instructor Everett Ford says, "all policemen like to shoot."

Since the training center opened a year ago, Ford has seen a significant change in the makeup of the student body. Many cadets in the first few classes were police officers or had attended police academies in Iraq, "so they had a lot of basic knowledge," he says. "Now we get get a lot less experienced people."

Statistics bear him out: In the current class, just 18 percent of the students have prior policing experiencing, while 82 percent come from a military background. Only 9 percent have gone to college, and 6 percent have no formal education at all.

Given the unusual dangers in Iraq, the practical part of the eight-week course includes such how-to's as spotting roadside bombs, searching buildings for explosive devices and identifying mine fields. Perhaps the most important lesson is this: stay safe.

"Police are killed on a daily basis in Iraq," says Thompson, the British instructor. "We constantly tell them to "go home safely every day' - that means you're working for Iraq, yourself and your family, and you're no good to your family if you don't go home safely."

Students keep up with events in the country by watching Al-Jazeera, the main Arab TV network, or by calling home. When violence escalates, they tend to show their nervousness by asking their instructors more questions. How would you handle this? How would you protect your family in such a situation?

Instructors do their best to answer. But many have never been to Iraq, and as Rivera says, "I can't imagine the difficulties they face."

It's a clear, crisp day for Class 10 graduation. Led by a Jordanian police band, the 1,444 cadets march smartly around the parade grounds, arms swinging, boots stomping in perfect synchrony.

At the rear are the flags of Singapore, Poland, Australia and the other nations whose governments have paid to send instructors here. In front wave the flags of Iraq and "brother Jordan," the little Arab country that has so much to gain - or lose - by what happens to its oil-rich neighbor.

The music ends, and the graduates stand at attention for the speeches.

"Your home country has an intense need for your efforts because recontrolling our nation will not work until stability and security prevail," Iraq's ambassador to Jordan tells the graduates. "I pray to God that you may be crowned with success in your lives, inshallah."

It is a simple but dignified ceremony. It is also poignant.

No mothers or daughters, wives or sisters are here to see the pride on the graduates faces: It is far too dangerous to travel from Iraq.

Nor can the graduates even take photos. No cameras have been allowed since nine members of Class 9 were ambushed on their way home last month. The al-Qaida-linked group that claimed responsibility posted a video of the killings, along with photos the graduates had taken of the training center and a statement slamming Jordan for "helping the U.S. Crusaders in their war against the mujahadeen."

As the ceremony ends, it is impossible not to wonder: How many in this class will meet the fate of those nine? Or the nearly 1,000 other police who have died since the war began?

Tomorrow, the graduates will be flown back to Iraq. They are supposed to be protected by coalition or Iraqi forces until they reach their homes.

For now, like graduates everywhere, they revel in the glory of the moment, not the uncertainties of the future. They cheer, they throw their caps in the air, they proudly show each other their certificates of graduation.

One graduate grabs an American visitor by the hand. He has a big smile on his face - as bright as the sun above - and says the only English words he knows:

"Good night! Thank you! Good night!"

Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com